


what stays and what fades away

by Elizabeth (anghraine)



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Family Secrets, Ficlet, Polyamory, Post-Battle of Endor, Threesome - F/F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 00:36:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16186445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anghraine/pseuds/Elizabeth
Summary: Whether they heard her or not, they understood.





	what stays and what fades away

When Leia told them the truth, Jyn and Cassian said nothing. They just withdrew into the slightly uncanny stillness they shared, and watched her, and listened.

Thank the Force.

By that point, she’d longed for them for weeks—not that she put it that way. She’d never wanted them more, though. Never  _needed_ them more, though she didn’t say that, either. She just, she had to talk about this, and she couldn’t trust anyone else except Luke, who had divided loyalties enough, and Han, who … no. And she—

She wanted them with her. That was enough.

* * *

Leia had always thought she’d be ecstatic when the Emperor died.

Oh, she was happy. She smiled at the radiant destruction of the second Death Star, and smiled at the other Rebel leaders in shared victory, and smiled when Han and Lando snuck off much less surreptitiously than they thought. She smiled most of all when Luke returned, intact and triumphant. Surrounded by singing and dancing and laughter, she couldn’t help but join in. Not quite as ecstatically, but—

Well, that was it, wasn’t it?

She wished she could simply say: Luke was her brother because he’d made himself her brother, not because they’d once shared a womb. Bail Organa was her father, her real father. Nothing else signified anything.

It was the most … suitable response, she supposed. And yet—

She did care. She hated that she cared, that it bothered her, that she felt like something icy and hungry in her breathed her air and would bleed from her veins. Not the Dark Side, she didn’t think. Deeper than that.

“I don’t know why it matters,” Leia said. “It doesn’t! My father is my real father. I’ve never wondered who the biological one was. This shouldn’t make a difference.”

Her voice came out loud and sharp, more so than usual, and almost breathlessly quick. She wasn’t sure if Jyn and Cassian could even parse out the words.

Whether they heard her or not, they understood. Jyn walked over to sit right next to her, grabbing her hand with a slightly painful grip. Cassian unpinned Leia’s hair as she talked; Jyn always ended up pulling and breaking strands when she bothered, but Cassian was good with fine details. At the touch of their hands, brisk and warm, some of Leia’s tension receded.

Not much, in fairness. But enough that her head stopped aching.

For a good hour, Leia talked, without reaching any kind of decision or resolution. She didn’t expect to. She just needed—this, talking over it without concern for their responses, without concern for any consequences at all, without anything but their strokes along her wrist and scalp, and vaguely sympathetic noises now and then. And she needed the time afterwards, when she had no words left, but a cold horror still vibrated within her.

It was Jyn, rather than Cassian, who broke the triple silence.

“What do you need?” she asked abruptly.

Leia didn’t know. She wished she did.

Luke had told more truths than the terrible one, back on Endor. Leia  _was_ strong; she’d always been strong, always would be. But sometimes—

It wasn’t weakness, she told herself. Not with people who had proven themselves faithful beyond any possibility of doubt, to Leia as well as the Rebellion. Not with people she cared about, who—all right, fine, who she loved. She’d waited until now because she loved and trusted them, Jyn and Cassian. She’d needed them, and they’d been here.

Leia squeezed her eyes shut.

“Hold me,” she said.


End file.
